


Partners

by thebisexualbanshee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Crack, Destiel - Freeform, Domestic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:35:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebisexualbanshee/pseuds/thebisexualbanshee
Summary: When something sinister starts snatching parents from Verona High School, Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Claire go undercover to solve the case. While Sam poses as a substitute teacher, Dean, Castiel, and Claire become an undercover modern family in order to infiltrate the PTA.





	1. Two-For-One

The teenage Gas-N-Sip cashier leaned on her elbows, grinning. The couple had walked in bickering, and they weren’t stopping as they approached the counter. 

“Hey, two for one sale,” Dean Winchester said, flashing a shit-eating grin over his shoulder at the angel in the trench coat behind him. He proceeded to snag four, not two, bags of spicy pork rinds. 

“Dean,” Castiel leveled, gravelly as ever, “You know Sam doesn’t like it when you eat things like that in the Impala.”

“It’s my car,” Dean answered. 

“I was trying to be delicate,” Castiel admitted, sighing. He spared a glance to the cashier and leaned in towards Dean, lowering his voice. “Sam thinks they cause you undue flatulence, which, of course, doesn’t bother me, as my senses are—”

“Damnit, Cas, come on!” Dean huffed, indignantly grabbing two more bags and piling them into the crook of his arm. “To spite you both,” he muttered, jabbing a finger at Castiel as he passed for the checkout counter. 

The bells on the door jingled, heralding Sam’s arrival. He threw out his arms and called across to Dean, “Dude, what’s taking so long?”

“Dean’s trying to spite us with…” Castiel squinted at the bags of pork rinds remaining on the shelf. “The fried skin of pigs. Which doesn’t seem—”

“Dude, what?” Sam rolled his eyes, turning back to Dean, who was doling out dollar bills to the cashier. 

“Two for one, Sammy,” Dean answered simply as Castiel approached the counter. 

“I told him of your objections,” Castiel said sagely to Sam. “Dean was unconcerned.”

“I’m right here, Cas,” Dean grumbled.

“You know those make you gassy,” Sam leveled at Dean.

“Oh, like you aren’t toxic after you’ve—” 

“Sam’s not exactly wrong, Dean, though again, I’m—” 

Dean and Castiel talked over one another, Dean bitching at his brother, Castiel doing his best to defuse the feuding brothers, with Sam joining the chorus of complaints with his own until only snippets of individual words made it out of the chaos, everything else devolving into gruff, masculine grumbling.

“So like, how long have you guys been together?” cut in the high-pitched voice of the cashier as she bagged Dean’s pork rinds. All three men went silent. 

“Yeah, that’s my brother, Mandy,” Dean said, squinting at the cashier’s nametag. 

She shook her head at Dean and popped her gum, nodding towards Castiel. “No, the other guy. Blue eyes over there.”

Dean blinked back his shock and Sam’s lips turned up into a silent, satisfied smirk, that only grew larger when Castiel, having misread the situation, answered, “I believe it’s been eight, or six, if we logically subtract the years I was—”

“Cas!” Dean interrupted, his face all hard lines and blush. 

“What?” Cas said, blinking at Dean. He turned to Sam, then, and asked with total sincerity, brows knitting, “Is my math incorrect?”

“No, nope, that’s—sounds right to me Cas,” Sam said, practically beaming. Dean remained silent and slack-jawed, though his gaze hardened to something sinister at his brother.

“Figured as much,” the cashier said, shrugging happily before backtracking, “I mean, not that—it’s cool, I have two moms. I just meant you guys argue like they do.”

“This is amazing,” said Sam, running a hand through his hair. “I just found our angle for getting in on this new case I caught.”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean griped, snatching his bag of pork rinds and stalking for the exit. 

***

Dean was silent for most of the drive—all eight hours of it—while Sam and Cas chatted happily about lore. Sam never missed an opportunity to pick the angel’s brain when they had him trapped in the Impala, and Castiel was always happy to oblige Sam’s curiosity. 

“So what about, like, domesticity?” Sam asked, and then intentionally pushed, watching Dean bristle from the corner of his eye. “Do angels settle down? Get married, have kids, the whole nine?”

“In a sense,” Cas said, leaning up on the middle seat. “But it isn’t like your human marriages. We’re more…partners. More about loyalty than romance—that’s a concept angels don’t understand. Unless, of course, we fall.” 

Castiel’s eyes trailed from Sam to the rearview mirror as he spoke, where he briefly met Dean’s green gaze. It was quick as a blink, but Sam didn’t miss it. 

“So, no kids then?” Sam prodded.

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Cas answered, looking at Sam once more. “Angels do copulate and bear offspring, obviously. You’ve heard of the Nephilim, I’m sure—the forbidden children of humans and angels. But remember,” Cas gestured down to his body, “We don’t look like this. These are vessels. Your ideas of sex are—well, frankly, limited. And birth is more like the creation of stars. The bonds of parenthood are tenuous at best. And gender, of course, is a human construct, fully irrelevant to angels.”

“Huh,” Sam said, chewing the inside of his cheek, resisting the urge to peer over at Dean, who he could practically feel seething beside him. “Did you ever have any kids? A—partner?”

“Alright, enough,” Dean finally interjected gruffly. “You’ve been grilling the poor guy for hours, Sam.”

“I don’t mind,” Castiel said quietly, staring Dean down in rearview mirror. Finally, when it became obvious Dean wouldn’t look back, he said to Sam, “No, I never did. I was a soldier, was meant to be from my inception. There was never opportunity for partnership.”

“Right,” said Sam, and then, “Does it bother you?”

“Enough, Sam,” said Dean. 

“It doesn’t,” said Castiel simply, though his gaze slid back to Dean, where it remained as the brothers spoke. 

“Tell me about the case,” Dean said, changing the subject brusquely.

“Something is snatching parents from a local high school,” Sam said, clearing his throat. “The article I read said they were all from the same PTA group.”

“Fantastic,” said Dean. “So, what—I’m going to be a P.E. teacher again?”

“Well, actually I was thinking…” Sam began, his gaze trailing back to Castiel. 

“What?” Dean said, and then caught Sam’s gaze. “Wait—no. No way. Why don’t you two play house, huh?”

“Because one of the parents was a teacher, and I already sent in fake documents saying I could be a substitute,” said Sam. 

“I could be a sub,” Dean scoffed. 

“Dean, not to be a dick, but you didn’t go to college.”

“So? I got my GED. We’ll watch some Magic Schoolbus.”

“You know I probably won’t actually be teaching,” Sam said, sighing. “I need to get into the teacher’s lounge, have access to files…besides, you heard that girl at the gas station. You guys kindof vibe. You’d be our in at the PTA” he finished, looking from Dean to Castiel.

“I’m not opposed to it, but I don’t want to make Dean uncomfortable,” said Castiel. 

“Okay, this is stupid. I’m not uncomfortable,” Dean griped. 

“So you’ll do it?” asked Sam.

“Yes, fine, whatever,” Dean answered indignantly. 

“Good,” said Sam, grinning. “Because I already called Claire. Congrats, guys: you’ve got a teenage daughter.”

“I hate you,” said Dean. “So much.”

“I know you do,” Sam said, grinning. 

The car fell into a comfortable pseudo-silence. Dean turned up the radio and focused on the road. Sam stared down at his phone, researching the case. Castiel sat quietly in the backseat, watching Dean, smiling barely to himself. 

***  
Claire had been working a job closer to the plagued high school and beat the boys there. She scoped out the area and found a small, but unoccupied and still mostly-furnished foreclosure home in a suburban neighborhood close enough to the school that the bus ran down the street. She plucked the sign from the yard, picked the lock, texted Sam the address, and had already claimed the biggest bedroom by the time the Impala grumbled up the drive.

“Good work, Claire,” Sam said in lieu of hello, giving the girl a side-squeeze.

“Thanks,” said Claire, and then smirked at Dean and Castiel. “So, who’s Dad and who’s Daddy? Our last name’s Jones, by the way. Keep it simple, easier to fake the IDs.”

“Shut up,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. 

“It’s good to see you again, Claire,” said Castiel, smiling, but cautious. Things with Claire had improved, but she still needed distance from the body of her father inhabited by someone else. 

“You too,” she answered simply. “So, my guess is we won’t be here more than a week tops, but I took the master bedroom anyway. But the other one’s cozy. Got a twin bed and everything.”

“There’s only two bedrooms?” Dean said, wheeling around to gawk at Claire, who nodded. “We are not sharing a bed,” he pointed at Castiel.

“Of course, Dean,” said Castiel simply. “I don’t sleep.”

“Glad that’s settled,” said Sam. “Let’s get going. Mr. and Mr. Jones, you have a PTA meeting in an hour.”


	2. Fake Married

Dean and Castiel dropped Sam off at his motel—an extra seedy one Dean picked out as a kind of revenge—so he could get changed and make his way to the police station while the (un)happy couple attended their first ever PTA meeting. Claire had gone to a local coffee shop—a place she’d heard was popular with the students—to try and make some connections. But not before she gave her new dads a makeover. 

She complained that she didn’t have a lot to work with (“You guys really do look like lumberjacks, you know. But sadder.”) but she cobbled something together that made the pair look a little less out of place. Dean was a little taller than Castiel, but Claire managed to make a pair of the hunter’s jeans work for Castiel by cuffing them stylishly at the bottom, and with his already black shoes and one of Dean’s black tees, she admitted the angel didn’t look half bad. Castiel’s transition from Holy Tax Accountant to Gay Dad went smoothly, without him giving any resistance. It was for a case, after all. Dean, however, was indignant. 

Claire went through every piece of clothing Dean had with him and finally coerced the whining adult into a reasonably stylish outfit: the jeans and shoes he was wearing that he’d refused to take off and a light blue flannel—single layer, she’d insisted, with the sleeves rolled up. With some glasses, Claire joked, they’d look like the perfect hipster couple. 

When they finally rolled up to Verona High’s parking lot, Dean hung his head—a moment of defeat he’d been staving off with anger all day. 

“Dean?” Castiel answered, quiet and serious as always. “Are you alright.”

“This is stupid,” Dean said with a sigh. 

“It’s for a case,” Cas reminded gently. “It’s not like we’re really—we don’t have to—”

“Alright, stop it,” Dean interrupted. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?” 

Dean wrenched himself out of the car and slammed the door too quickly to catch Castiel rolling his eyes. 

The PTA meeting was in one of the science classrooms, and Dean smirked at all the adults sitting at desks, legs bowing out to their sides, until he tried to fit himself into one of the teen-sized contraptions. Castiel, despite his height, somehow looked correct squishing his body into the confined seat. He folded his hands on the desk and rolled his eyes once more as he watched Dean make a show of huffing and scraping the desk along the floor as he tried to get comfortable. 

“Bite me, Cas,” he grumbled when he caught the angel’s stare. 

Castiel simply tilted his head in response. A few more parents trickled in, some singles, some in pairs, and then a short older woman with a bob stood up at the front, calling the meeting to order. 

“Thanks for being here,” she started, clearing her throat. “Especially in light of—well. You know. I’ll get right to it: Alan and his wife disappeared this morning. Their son is one of my students. He said—they were found a few hours ago, I—” 

The woman cut herself off as her voice broke, and murmurs and quiet, horrified gasps filled the room like buzzing flies. Dean and Castiel exchanged a glance, and Dean sat up straighter, donning his case face. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” the woman cleared her throat and began again. “They found Alan and Sue the same way they found the others. Their son is being taken to his grandparent’s house a few hours north—oh.”

She stopped again, blinking her teary eyes to the back of the room at Dean and Castiel. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize we had new members.” The whole room turned on the hunter and his angel, offering polite, weak smiles in the wake of the devastating news. Dean opened his mouth and closed it a few times, and finally, Cas took the lead when he realized Dean wasn’t going to get a word out. 

“Yes, we’ve just moved here,” Castiel said, gesturing to dean. “I’m Castiel Jones, and this is my—” he swallowed, “husband, Dean. Our—daughter, Claire, is a junior.”

Dean smiled tersely in response. The woman leading the meeting mustered a smile. 

“Oh, wonderful! Welcome, welcome,” she said. “I’m Gretchen Abrams, the assistant principal and PTA president. I’m sorry, you’ve come in at a—trying moment. We’re enduring some tragedies in our community,” she blanched, and then added, “But not hate crimes. Nothing like that. Verona is a really inclusive city. We even have a thriving support group for students with same-sex parents, if you think your daughter would be interested.”

Dean’s mouth fell open, and Castiel reached over, simply, to place his hand on Dean’s where it rested in a fist on the desk. “That’s alright, thank you. We’re sorry for your losses, and glad to be here.”

Gretchen smiled at the pair of them, and though a look of confusion flashed across her face at Dean’s expression, she quickly picked back up with the meeting, discussing plans to implement counseling sessions during homeroom in the wake of all the murders. Cas removed his hand, and Dean shoved his into his lap, his features turning to stone, but his ears burning red at the tips. 

The meeting ended after about an hour, and Dean and Cas got to work making small talk, gleaning what details they could about the disappearances from the other parents. When Dean heard a snippet of Castiel’s conversation with a parent behind him (“You have a greyhound? Are you aware many of them are only capable of thinking in ovals?”), he decided it was time to go. 

“Hey Cas,” he clapped the angel easily on the shoulder—that kind of touch, at least, was familiar, “We should be getting home. Claire’ll burn the kitchen down if she has to cook her own dinner.”

The woman Cas had been talking to laughed and said, “My Blake’s the same way. Good to meet you both—you make such a lovely couple.”

Dean’s smile tightened, and he dipped his head, steering Cas for the door by the back of the angel’s arm. He rounded on him with quiet, whispered anger the moment they were safe in the high school’s darkened hallway. 

“Dude? Husband? And the hand thing? At least ‘partner’ doesn’t sound as…as gay!”

“I was just playing the role,” Castiel said, though he notably deflated. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean watched the angel’s face fall and couldn’t take it. He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face, walking for the exit again. “No, man, come on—I don’t mean it like that. You did good. I just don’t like people thinking we’re—”

“Thinking we’re _that_ kind of family.”

Dean stammered, but he couldn’t look at Castiel. He pushed into the parking lot and fumbled needlessly with his keys, shaking his head. “It’s not like that, Cas,” he said softly. 

“What’s it like, Dean?” Cas wondered, eyes narrowing. 

“Knock it off, Cas,” Dean snapped. “We’re not going to have a real married fight while we’re fake married.” He blinked at his own statement and shook his head once, pulling open the car door and sliding in.

Castiel was silent the whole way home.

***  
When they arrived at their fake home, they found Claire lounging at the bare kitchen table drinking a beer, the remainder of the six-pack and a handle of cheap whiskey to her left. 

“How did you even get that?” Dean said, tossing his keys. “You’re like sixteen.”

“I’m twenty,” Claire said, and rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot. Our whole lives run on fake IDs.”

Dean conceded the point in silence with a lift of his eyebrows, snatching the whiskey and heading to the couch, where he flopped down to drink in moody silence. Castiel slid into a chair beside Claire and rubbed his temple. 

“May I have a beer?” he asked, to Claire’s surprise. 

“You drink? Does it do anything for you?”

“Not really, but I’ve come to like it. It’s comforting. Something that feels familiar.”

“Are you uncomfortable?” Claire wondered, passing over a bottle.

Castiel gave a hapless shrug, twisting off the bottle’s top. “I miss my wings. I’m still an angel, but less. I’m more human than most. Not many of us get to have a body of our own, and it—oh, Claire, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Claire had gone rigid in her seat, jaw set. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m calling it a night.” She stood to leave and took the remaining beers with her, loping up the stairs. Castiel flinched when he heard the door slam, and with his still-angelic hearing, lock behind her. 

The living room and kitchen in the small house might as well have been one room, only separated by the divide of a laminate floor to carpet. Dean couldn’t see Claire and Castiel, but he’d been listening to the exchange, and even blocked by the couch, he knew exactly what Cas was doing: elbows on the table, head in his hands, staring down into his beer. A wave of guilt shuttled through Dean, settling in his chest and constricting his throat. _Why had he been such an asshole to Cas all day? It’s not like he had a problem with gay guys, it’s just that he wasn’t one._

And if he was being brutally honest with himself (and as quickly as he’d been drinking that whiskey, he was more honest than usual), he had a thing for the angel. He’d wished more than once, even when sober, that Castiel had picked a female vessel—but then it wouldn’t really be Cas. And that was the problem. It’s what Cas had been saying to Claire.

That wasn’t Castiel’s vessel. He wasn’t sharing it with anyone. That’s where Castiel lived now. That was his body. That was Cas. 

But Dean could never bring himself to act on it—not really. He’d wanted to; he knew that’s why Sam was picking at him with the fake marriage and the PTA meetings. Sam saw how Dean looked at Cas, and how Cas looked back; how they touched each other, moved around each other, their gazes always locking for a bit too long, their fingers lingering in ways that weren’t platonic.

And having Cas here, forced into this role of domesticity, with a kid—even if it wasn’t real, it reminded Dean of Lisa and Ben, and how he wanted that now with Cas. Not that kind of life—hunters (and in truth, Cas was a hunter now) never got to settle and get a grill and a dog. But he could see himself settling with Cas, sharing a room in the bunker, fighting beside each other and going out in flames one day, the way they both knew they always would.

So why couldn’t he just fucking do something about it? With another swig of whiskey, Dean resolved he would. 

He grunted with the hot taste of liquor on his tongue and effort as he launched himself to a seated position, peering over the back of the couch. “Cas?” he mumbled, and the angel was just how Dean thought he’d be: hunched, practically emitting waves of self-loathing. He looked up at his name, and Dean could see the too-human tiredness and guilt in the circles beneath his eyes, the worry lines in his forehead. 

When did this angel—this immortal celestial creature—start to age and look like him: weary?

“Damnit,” Dean muttered, dropping his gaze.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” Cas wondered quietly, rising to pace over and join Dean on the couch.

The angel sat on the other end of the couch, and Dean was struck by the existence of his body, still in the borrowed t-shirt and jeans—he was so unused to seeing the angel without layers of ill-fitting clothes. And coupled with the piercing blue eyes leveled on his, Dean almost lost his nerve.

“It’s nothing, Cas,” Dean signed, smiling weakly. He sucked in a breath, though, and steeled himself. “Look, man, I know I’m hard on you. It’s not fair, I know it. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in this,” he gestured to himself vaguely, “I forget you’ve been through hell too. It’s not cool.”

“Dean,” Castiel sighed, but Dean cut him off.

“No, man, I’m serious. You’re—family. And, y’know. I don’t think we tell you enough, but you’re important, Cas. We—I need you. You dragged me out of Hell and I can’t get over myself for a few hours to work a case.” Dean ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. “So—you’re right. I’ll stow my shit and play my role for this case. I’m sorry.”

Cas watched Dean carefully as he spoke, his features smoothing out—trying to rid his face of the human hurt he’d grown accustomed to having, and to hiding. He nodded once. “It’s alright, Dean. I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t, Cas. You don’t.”

“Good,” said Cas, allowing a small, half-cocked smile. When Dean smiled back, he relaxed. 

“Yeah. Look, man, I’m gonna hit the sack. We’ve got a long day of research tomorrow,” said Dean, rising and stretching. 

Castiel nodded simply. “Of course. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Night,” mumbled Dean, and shuffled off for the stairs, leaving the angel to the empty couch.


	3. Line in the Sand

Over the next two days, Dean slipped easily between the two worlds of the job: the domestic front while around town, the husband-and-husband crime-buff duo, and the grimy, gritty, alcoholic hunting half behind closed doors. He and Castiel decided, for posterity, they should have a backstory: they met in law school (nowhere fancy, nothing recognizable), which explained why other PTA members kept seeing one or both of them near crime scenes and the police station (they were both criminal lawyers with backgrounds in forensics, just lending a hand to their new community), and Sam coached them on enough of the law lingo to sell it in small talk. Dean even let Castiel hold his hand when they ran into the greyhound woman from the meeting on the way to the morgue. He didn’t even flinch. In fact, he leaned his shoulder into Cas—though internally, he reasoned it was just the slope of the sidewalk throwing him off. 

On day three, things got complicated. They’d spent more than a few days in one place before for a hunt, especially when it was more than one monster, like a werewolf pack or nest of vampires, but this case was threatening to extend to a week, maybe longer. They’d expected it in some respects; it’s why Claire had thought to squat in a house rather than have them living out of cheap motels. What if someone wanted to come by? Couldn’t really keep up a front if you had the neighbors over for drinks on the porch of the Super 8. 

But whatever this monster was wasn’t fitting any profile they’d seen before; instead, it was fitting multiple: at the morgue, Sam (who had been correct about probably not having to teach: he spent a day showing science videos to a freshman bio class before they brought in someone more qualified) reported bodies drained of blood, missing hearts and pituitary glands, and even hex bags in stomachs. The boys and Claire pored over lore, but kept coming back to the same conclusion: it had to be more than one monster, and the theory was that a witch was behind it all. 

Some magical asshole had beef with the PTA and found a way to enslave monsters to do their bidding. The problem was finding the witch, but the problem was also finding and killing the werewolves, vampires, and kitsunes before they killed more people. Dean was unconvinced; they should be looking for the witch, THEN the monsters. Sam and Claire disagreed. That left Castiel to choose a side: split down the middle or majority rule. 

“I don’t know,” said the angel when cornered by the trio of hunters. They had almost divided themselves literally, Sam and Claire on one side of the kitchen table, Dean on the other, Cas somewhere in the middle. 

“We kill the monsters, the monsters can’t kill anyone else,” Sam reasoned, exasperated. 

“We kill the witch and the monsters are still gonna do what monsters do, spell or not,” Claire agreed. 

“That could take weeks,” Dean answered. “We do it your way, we need to call in backup. We can’t hunt four things—that we even know of—at once.”

“And it won’t take weeks the other way?” said Sam.

“If we gank the witch, the spell breaks, at least slows them down so we can catch up,” Dean huffed. 

“Cas, you gonna weigh in?” asked Sam. 

“I agree with Dean,” said Castiel, finally, quietly. 

Dean’s posture straightened, and it was subtle, but Sam still caught the quick grin, the brief glimmer of pride that shot across his brother’s face.

“Thank you,” Dean said, gruff normalcy returned. “So what, we draw a line in the sand? Split up? That’s never a good idea and you know it.”

“I didn’t say anything yet,” said Sam. 

“Whatever, shut up,” Claire grumbled, finally. “Look, if we—I guess if we find the witch, they can take us to the monsters.”

“Three to one, Sammy,” Dean said, smirking.

“Okay. Fine,” said Sam. “It’s late. I’ll work on dissecting the hex bag in the morning. Meet me at the library?” 

“Yep,” said Dean, defused. He strode to the fridge, which was now working despite the city having long ago turned off the foreclosed home’s power, thanks to a jolt from Cas to the transformer outside. “Hey, Cas, you think you could make the cable work too?”

“Probably,” mused Castiel, eyes crinkling at the corners in consideration. 

Dean felt his heart lurch in adoration at the angel’s familiar expression, and let slip a small smile of endearment. Sam, ever watchful, noticed a lot about the two, and he caught this moment as well. 

“See you guys in the morning,” said Sam, and at his voice Dean stuffed himself back into normalcy. 

“Yep,” said Dean again, waving blandly as Sam disappeared. “You want a beer?” He asked, and then, noticing Claire was still present, amended, “Either of you?”

“I’ll take it to go,” said Claire, eyeing Dean suspiciously. 

“Whatever,” Dean said, making a stink face at the girl as she snagged a beer and turned for the stairs. 

“I’ve been stealing the neighbor’s wifi,” she shrugged, and added with a smirk, “Anyway. Seems like you two could use some alone time.”

Castiel’s head whipped around and his blue eyes blew themselves wide, chapped lips parting, but making no sound. He looked from Claire, who wore an expression of extreme self-pleasure, to Dean, who was making a face and unintelligible mocking noises at the girl before barking, “Go to your room” without seeming to realize what he’d done. Until Claire snorted and turned to bound up the stairs, and Dean’s face clouded over in a moment of bizarre self-reflection. 

It was Castiel’s turn to find himself smiling unintentionally, but instead of being caught by Sam or Claire, it was Dean who looked up to notice the angel’s heart-eyed gaze. “Uhh—Cas?” Dean mumbled, his own ears growing hot and red. 

“Yes,” Castiel said. It wasn’t a question. 

“What?”

“Yes, I’d like a beer,” he clarified. 

“Oh. Right, yeah,” said Dean, brows knitting. He shook his head and grabbed two bottles by the neck. “So, you said you could get cable?”

“I believe I can reroute the current,” said Castiel, “But satellite would be easier, as the wavelengths are similar to the ones used for—”

“English, Cas,” Dean interrupted gently.

Castiel grinned. “Yes, I can get you television,” he answered, and his smile faded back into his trademark serious half-frown. “But I was hoping we could talk.”

Dean’s heart leapt into his throat, but he tried to keep it down, asking, “Talk about what?” as he pried open a beer and passed it to Castiel, then opened his own. 

“What Claire said, just now, about us being alone. I feel there were…implications.”

“She’s just being a brat, Cas,” Dean said, relaxing his shoulders, though the tension stayed in his creased brow. “Since we’re—y’know. Pretending to be a thing.”

“Oh,” Cas answered softly. 

Dean sipped his beer and moved around to the couch, sinking down and patting the seat next to him. “You sound disappointed,” he said, cautiously. 

“No, it’s—maybe a little,” Cas admitted, taking a seat a safe distance down the couch from Dean. 

“You wanna elaborate, buddy?”

“Things have seemed off between us since the gas station incident,” said Cas, running a hand through his dark hair. 

Dean’s shoulders sank and he hung his head, shaking it. “We talked about that, Cas. And I’m sorry. You know I got issues. Sam’s the one who’s good at this emotional stuff.”

“That’s not exactly what I mean, Dean.”

“Alright, what do you mean?”

“I—” Castiel started, and stopped, watching Dean carefully. When the hunter gave an encouraging dip of his head, he added softly, face a mask of caution, “I like holding your hand.”

Dean’s eyes blew wide with shock, and as he looked away from Castiel, the angel’s stomach flipped in the most painfully human way—the way it always did with Dean. But this time was worse, somehow. More flippy. More painful. Cas felt as if he’d been split down the middle and everything inside was trying to force its way out. Meanwhile, strange, invisible hands clenched around his chest, making his lungs ache and his heart race. Finally, he spoke, almost too quietly to hear. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. I shouldn’t—”

“Cas, stop,” Dean answered with his gentler gruffness, the soft tone reserved most often for Castiel. He shook his head a little and let out a humorless laugh, fidgeting with his beer bottle, still not looking up. “Just—you can’t drop something like that and not give a guy a second to think, okay?”

“Okay,” Castiel said, dipping a single nod, eyes still locked on Dean. He watched as the hunter grappled with something large, but invisible, like he was wrestling a tentacled creature trapped in the confines of his body, only able to be vanquished by sheer force of will. Castiel had been alive (barring a few mishaps) for eons, had seen millennia pass in the blink of an eye, and yet the seconds that stretched before him now, waiting for Dean, seemed the longest he’d ever known.

“It’s not like,” Dean started, still fighting back the creature beneath his skin, “It’s not like I didn’t—like we didn’t know, you know?” He swallowed. “More profound bond, or something,” he quoted awkwardly. “Just—I don’t know, Cas. To say it makes it true.”

“You don’t want it to be true?” Castiel asked, and in his head, his voice sounded like a desperate, strangling thing, though if Dean noticed, he didn’t comment. 

“No, Cas. I mean yes—I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that question,” Dean struggled. He finally looked up to meet Castiel’s gaze, and his face fell as he did, eyes raking over the angel’s expression. “Oh, Cas…” he almost-whispered, broken.

Immediately, Castiel became aware of the tension in his features; he could only imagine what he looked like to Dean. Carefully, he let it drain into a mask of indifference, save for his lips pressing into a line. “You should get some rest,” he said simply, rising and setting his beer on the table. 

“Cas, wait—”

“I’ll get started on the hex bags. No use wasting the night,” he continued, wishing bitterly that in that moment he had his wings, that he could just disappear. The walk to the door felt like a humiliating slog through a river of molasses. “Cas!” He heard from behind him, and Dean’s scramble to rise, but the barely-furnished home was small; he was at the threshold more quickly than expected, shutting the door behind him and disappearing into the suburban almost-darkness, envying the fireflies their flight the whole walk down the drive.


	4. Revenge

“Dude, what happened with Cas?” Sam demanded as soon as Dean arrived at the library the next morning. 

“Nothing,” Dean grumbled, but looked around. “Where is he anyway?”

“Probably out looking for a vamp nest he dug up or something else stupid,” said Sam. “He was researching all night and basically salivating over the sunrise he was so desperate to work. So don’t give me that ‘nothing happened’ bullshit.”

“I’ll text him,” Dean deflected, and Sam threw up his hands. “Claire’s at school keeping an eye out. Apparently, it’s pep rally day. Go Vikings,” he added, deadpan. 

“You’re an idiot,” Sam muttered. “You know, everybody knows but you.”

“Everybody knows what?” said Dean, scowling up from his phone.

“That you’re carrying a freaking torch for each other,” Sam spat.

“Oh, come on—”

“No, you come on, Dean. Nobody cares if you like guys.”

“I don’t like—this is ridiculous,” said Dean, reaching out to snag a book. “Let’s just finish this case, alright?”

“Fine. But don’t think this is over,” said Sam, flipping a book open so loudly some hidden librarian shushed them.

Dean rolled his eyes at Sam, who was taking out his frustration on a book of ancient sigils. He looked to his phone again and pulled up his messages, thumbing out a text to Castiel. 

_Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed._

He let out a sigh and turned to the books, but his phone was buzzing almost immediately. 

**Found the local vamp nest. Only three. I can handle it.**

“Damnit, Cas,” Dean whispered, shooting up from the table. “You’re gonna have to finish this yourself. I’ll be back,” he said, still texting. _Where the Hell are you? I’m coming._

“What the Hell?” Sam called after Dean, but didn’t rise. A librarian shushed him again, and he rolled his eyes, muttering to himself, again, “Idiot.” 

Dean’s phone buzzed again as he neared his car.

**It's fine, Dean.**

“Like Hell it is,” Dean muttered as he slid into the car, texting back, _Don’t be an idiot. Where are you?_

And the quick reply: **I’m an angel, you ass.**

“Seriously? You fucking child, Cas,” Dean spat. He cranked the Impala and sped off out of the parking lot even as he dialed the phone company to turn on GPS tracking. “Hi, I need to—don’t put me on hold—damnit!” He drove around the small town, hitting every side street and back alley he could find, searching out any place that might be a haven for a vampire. All the while, elevator music played from the speaker of his phone on the seat beside him, the nearly thirty-minute hold mocking him. 

Right around the half hour mark, a buzzing interrupted the shitty tune. Dean sped the Impala to the shoulder of the road and slammed it into park, thumbing open the message from Castiel.

**It’s done. Getting cleaned up. Sam thinks he’s found something on the witch.**

“Stupid son of a bitch,” he yelled and threw his phone, missing the incoming witch text from Sam as he tore out for their fake house. 

He must have arrived just minutes behind Castiel, because the angel was standing in the kitchen, still covered in blood and grime, cleaning off a machete in the sink. Dean stormed across the small room and grabbed Castiel, who dropped the knife with a loud clatter, by the collar of the borrowed t-shirt he was still wearing, slamming the angel’s back hard into the wall. 

“What the Hell were you thinking?” Dean spat, knuckles white around Castiel’s shirt. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

Castiel said nothing. He barely even reacted—simply narrowed his eyes and gave a defiant uptick of his chin. Even without his full angelic power, Dean saw something powerful glance behind the blue irises, and the reminder that Castiel wasn’t human, could squash him like a bug if he felt like it, forced him back. He released the shirt and shuffled a step back, shaking his head. 

“Are you done?” Castiel finally answered, deadpan. 

“No,” said Dean, shaking his head, his voice rising again. “No, because I was worried. Aright? Is that what you want to hear? I was worried about you, Cas, because I can’t—” he cut himself off, his voice strangling.

Castiel’s hard mask faltered just slightly, and faded completely to guilt when Dean finished, “I can’t lose you again, man. I can’t. So don’t do stupid shit like that just because you’re pissed at me.”

“Why not?” Castiel snarked back, the guilt he felt not yet enough to overcome his angry hurt. 

“Because I like holding your hand too!” Dean yelled, taking a step closer to Castiel. Almost instantly, he realized what he said, his anger falling off sharply into fear. Immediately, he retreated, backstepping until he bumped into the table. 

Castiel softened without meaning to, his guts threatening to spill out again. He stepped forward, a bloody hand instinctively reaching for the crumbling hunter. “Dean, I—”

“Am I interrupting something?” Claire’s voice shot through the kitchen, followed by a snort. “Obviously.”

Castiel watched as Dean built himself back into a thing of stone, as fascinating as it was heartbreaking, as he turned to Claire. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Dean griped, then corrected, “Fake school?”

Claire rolled her eyes, though they lingered curiously on Castiel’s blood-splattered body as she answered, “Yeah, well, they let out early today.” She tapped her phone, then turned it to face Dean and Cas, a breaking news article pulled up on the screen. “Another body dropped. The starting quarterback’s mom. So if you two are done with your lover’s quarrel, we should call Sam.”

Before either of the men could muster a response, Claire was stalking off for the stairs to collect her gear. Dean and Castiel stood in silence for a few beats, looking anywhere but each other. “You should get cleaned up,” said Dean, finally. “I’ll call Sammy.”

Castiel moved for the stairs without a sound. 

***  
Dean, Castiel, and Claire met up with Sam at the crime scene, all in Fed suits but Claire. For the fake family, the ride there was tense, with Dean and Cas sniping at each other in the front seat the whole way.

“Your tie’s backwards, Cas.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“The Hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it means, Dean.”

At that point, Dean had rolled his eyes and shoved a random cassette into his tape deck, a wailing guitar suddenly filling the cab. 

“Could you turn it down?”

“What?” asked Dean. 

“I said, could you please turn it down?”

“Why? Something to say?”

“Is there something you want me to say?”

“Oh my god,” Claire grumbled, slumping in the backseat. 

She shot out of the car like a bat out of hell, stalking straight past Sam, who’d beaten them there. “Could you remind them they’re not actually a couple?” she grumbled as she passed. “Because I think they forgot they don’t have to keep it up in private.”

The cops stopped her at the caution tape, but it was all well enough; there were witnesses hanging around, and Claire was decent enough at faking sympathy to get them to talk. Sam watched her disappear into a small throng of onlookers, and then turned to peer after his brother and the angel, and the icy way they walked, far apart and speechless, towards him. 

“Trouble in paradise?” Sam asked as they approached. 

“Shut up,” said Dean. “What do we got?”

Sam glanced from Dean to Cas, sighed, and nodded towards the roped-off area—a wide intersection—where a body bag was being lifted onto a stretcher. “Apparently, Linda Sailers got up from her desk where she works, in that building,” Sam pointed to an office building across the street, “Waited until the light was green, and walked out into the intersection.”

“Hex bag?” Dean wondered.

Sam nodded. “Seems that way.”

“Why would a witch recruit monsters when they could just send people into traffic?” Castiel asked, squinting toward the ambulance. 

“Cover their tracks?” said Sam, shrugging. “Throw off the trail of hunters?”

Castiel nodded. “So what’s the connection, besides the PTA? That can’t be the only reason.”

“Soccer moms,” grumbled Dean. “They’re all insane.” 

Sam rolled his eyes, and was about to speak when Claire emerged from the crowd. “So, all these victims? Not just PTA,” she said. The boys looked at each other, and then back to Claire. 

“Good timing,” said Dean. “Tell us more.”

It turned out, Claire explained, the PTA was more tight-knit out of need than of friendship or school spirit. A chatty nurse in the witness crowd had told Claire the whole story: two years ago, the quarterback (who wasn’t yet the quarterback, but was a promising football player with his eyes on college scholarships) had driven drunk after a party and killed a girl out for a late-night run: Jessica Mathers. At the time, his mother was running for state senator, and her husband—the campaign manager, seemed to think it would be disastrous to her poll numbers if word got out—not to mention their son’s scholarship hopes would be dashed before they started. 

So they pulled strings. The other parents who died? PTA members, yeah, but also: the local judge who kept the case from advancing; the cop who was paid off to fudge the arrest report and “lose” the breathalyzer results; and the spouses of those people who helped keep it quiet. Jessica’s family had lost their father/husband the year before, and now with no one, Jessica’s mother Angela went, the storytelling nurse said, insane—started getting into strange occult stuff, checking out weird books from the library, and generally disappeared from public life. 

“So there’s your answer,” finished Claire. “Poor woman lost everything, spent two years studying, and got her revenge.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and passed it to Sam. “Here’s her address. What do you say we pay her a visit?”

Sam took the paper, nodding. “Yep. Let’s go—not you,” he amended when Dean and Castiel moved to join him. “Claire and I can handle one witch. You two go and—I don’t know. Work your shit out.”

“You kidding me?” Dean scoffed. “We’re fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Sam replied simply, “And if your head’s not in it you don’t need to be out there. Go to the house, have your domestic spat, and fix it. You’re driving everyone crazy.”

“Seriously?” Dean balked, but Sam was already walking away, Claire in tow. He blinked back to Castiel, who was already heading the other direction, back towards the Impala. 

“People walking away from me,” he grumbled, stalking after Castiel. 

They drove back to the house in total silence.


	5. Broken

Dean burst into the empty house, shoving the door so hard it cracked against the wall and shattered the silence for him, enough that he grumbled back to Castiel, who was inspecting the new dent in the sheetrock, “What was the bitch’s name? Mathers?”

“What are you thinking?” asked Castiel, warily, easing the door closed gently.

“Yeah, Mathers,” Dean said to himself, ignoring the angel. “Angela Mathers.” He scooped up Claire’s laptop from where she’d left it earlier on the couch.

“Dean,” Castiel goaded again.

“Do you know her password?” Dean answered, hitting the spacebar irritably before giving up and turning to his phone, thumbing the name ANGELA MATHERS into the search engine. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Dean.”

“That’s my name,” said Dean, surly. Behind him, Castiel rolled his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing, Cas?” Dean snapped, turning around to face Castiel, features hard, angry.

Castiel’s nostrils flared, and Dean didn’t miss that same sinister flash of grace behind the blue eyes. “Sam was very clear.” 

“Yeah, well, Sammy ain’t in charge.”

“Dean—”

“Alright, enough, Cas. I heard you the first ten times.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “You heard me but you didn’t listen.”

“Oh my god, could you _be_ more like a nagging wife?” Dean spat, rising from the couch. “He’s my brother, alright? I’m not letting him and a kid go on a hunt alone.”

“Claire’s years older than you were when you started hunting,” Castiel reminded Dean flatly. “And that’s not why you want to go.”

Dean snorted, jamming his phone back into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and striding for the door. “Yeah, okay, Dr. Phil. You coming or not?”

“No, and you’re not going either,” Cas threatened, confident. 

“Are you sure you want to go there?” Dean warned, and then threw up his hands, accusing, “Can we just work the job, please? I swear, man, it’s like you want to fight.”

“No, I want to fix this,” said Cas.

“It’s not broken, Cas!” Dean snarled, and both their faces went blank with the blurry deja-vu of memory, with realization. Castiel was silent, staring, and Dean folded, his voice still gruff, but the edge of anger gone. “Look, just—we’ll talk about it. Okay? I promise. I swear, we will talk about this. But right now, I need to kill something, and I need to work this case so that something doesn’t kill anyone else. Okay?”

Castiel kept staring, his gaze leveled on Dean’s, and he read the truth of it in his eyes, carefully, more than once, before reluctantly agreeing. “Alright.”

“So, are you coming?” Dean repeated more quietly, more open.

Castiel rolled his eyes, snagging his trench coat from where it had been resting for days, slung over the back of a kitchen chair. 

“Of course I am.”

***  
They arrived to find the witch’s house empty, the evidence of Sam’s and Claire’s exploration lingering in the form of a kicked-in door. Dean shrugged at Cas, and as if on cue, both their phones started ringing. Incoming calls from Sam and Claire, respectively. 

“I got it,” Dean said, and picked up. “Sam?”

“Yeah, uhh, we may need you after all,” came the voice over the receiver. Castiel’s phone had stopped ringing, and Dean put his on speaker. They could hear shrieks in the background, and a close-by gunshot. Dean guessed that was Claire.

“What’s going on? Where are you?” Dean demanded. 

“Warehouse, corner of Fifth and Maine,” said Sam. “Bring witch-killing and silver bullets. And an angel blade. Gotta—” and then the line disconnected in a fuzzy crunch. 

“Damnit,” said Dean, already striking out for the door. “C’mon,” he instructed Castiel needlessly, the angel already on his heels. 

The drive, thankfully, wasn’t far. Within ten minutes they were screeching to a halt at the edge of the warehouse. Dean had shed his Fed coat sometime during the drive, and was out of the car in seconds, tucking guns into his waistband and loading his pockets with clips. Castiel slid an angel blade into the hidden holster in his sleeve, and Dean slammed the trunk. 

He was just about to wrench open the nearest door when he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. “No,” Castiel commanded, moving himself in front of Dean. 

“What?” Dean spat back.

“A bullet will hurt me, but it could kill you,” the angel answered gruffly. “Let me at least get us oriented.”

“Fine,” Dean conceded, and Castiel cracked the door, barely peeking an eye inside. 

“We’re at the wrong end,” he muttered to Dean, pulling the door ever-so-slightly wider. The shrieks and clangs and sounds of gunshots erupted wrongly into the bright afternoon sun. “Sam and Claire are barricaded on the other side.”

“Good, take these sons of bitches by surprise,” Dean grumbled, starting to edge forwards.

“It risks friendly fire,” Castiel warned. 

“Sammy’s a good shot,” Dean reasoned, and Cas conceded. 

“Ready?” asked the angel.

“Ready,” said Dean, gun drawn and cocked. 

Castiel nodded and wrenched open the heavy warehouse door. 

Light poured blindingly into heavy shadows of the warehouse, the large windows on the wrong side of the sun to let in much natural light. It worked in Dean’s and Castiel’s favor, momentarily; the sudden brightness was briefly disorienting to those inside, and it gave the pair just enough time to find cover against the wall behind some concrete blocks before the door swung shut and buried them in the dusk-like darkness once more. Castiel’s angelic vision saw the problem before Dean, and while the hunter’s eyes adjusted, he described the situation at hand. 

“This witch is powerful for one so young,” he whispered. “Whatever spell she’s using, she’s able to control angels, too.”

“That gonna be a problem, Cas?” Dean worried, squinting into the shadows, where the action had picked back up. Bodies already littered the massive floor: at least five or six _somethings,_ and four more still standing. “Are those—werewolves? How are they shifted during the day?”

“It must be the spell,” Castiel grumbled, ignoring Dean’s initial question. 

Indeed, three of the creatures were fully-shifted werewolves, all yellow claws and fur. Sam and Claire had emerged from their cover, and Sam was fighting off two of them at once, the third feinting and dodging with Claire. The fourth figure, however, looked entirely human, and was standing still in the middle of the floor, staring at the space where Cas and Dean were hidden.

“That our witch?” Dean muttered, and amended, “No—that’s a dude. Cas?”

“That’s an angel,” Cas hushed, voice suddenly dark. 

“Awesome,” Dean blurted, and suddenly he was barreling across the open floor towards his brother. Castiel only missed half a beat, and then he followed, moving in on his spellbound, winged kin. 

“Sammy!” Dean yelled in warning, and the wolves engaging Sam both looked. Sam ducked just as Dean fired a silver bullet, their movements as in sync as a dance. The wolf the bullet was flying towards dodged death, but caught the projectile in her shoulder, letting out a screech of pain. She turned her attention from Sam, who was tangling again with the remaining wolf, and barreled towards Dean. 

Dean held his ground, lining up the she-wolf in his sight as she neared. When it was centered, he pulled the trigger—but nothing happened. The hammer didn’t click; it was jammed. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was usually the worst possible moment. The phrase, _Murphy’s Law_ ran unbidden through Dean’s brain an instant before he was tackled to the floor.

One hand came up around her throat, keeping her gnashing teeth at bay, while Dean shoved the barrel of his gun into her chest. “Come on!” he shouted, and pulled the trigger as claws tore viciously into the skin of his cheek. This time, the gun went off, the bullet ripping through the she-wolf’s heart and out the other side.

“NO!” the wolf engaged with Claire bellowed, which afforded Claire the in she needed. From beneath the body of the slain wolf, Dean watched as the blonde hunter flashed across the floor to the gun that had apparently been wrangled away from her. She was impressively fast, and impressively accurate: as the grieving wolf lit out for Dean, Claire fired, hitting it squarely in the back. 

Dean rolled the corpse from his body, his white Fed shirt soaked through with her blood. He sat up to find Castiel still clashing with the angel in the middle of the room, blades flashing and clanging, each celestial deftly avoiding the other’s blows. For a heartbeat, Dean was nearly star-struck: he so rarely saw Castiel fighting without being involved in a skirmish himself, and the sheer skill and dance-like grace with which the blue-eyed angel moved made him catch his breath. With a pang of guilt, he realized his angel really hadn’t been in grave danger from those vampires; Castiel could handle himself, and more. 

When the shot from Claire rang out, the final wolf, the one fighting Sam, seemed to deliberate: it leapt backwards from Sam and hissed, defensively, seeing that it was outnumbered. It seemed he was about to attempt an escape when his body went rigid, his eyes grew cloudy, dark, and fixed with violent rage. At the same time, from somewhere in the darkened exterior of the warehouse, a phrase in Latin rang out. 

For just a moment, everything stopped. The burly vessel fighting Castiel stepped back, and both angels peered to the corner. Every hunter squinted into the shadows, and silently, a small brunette woman emerged, completely naked, palms outstretched. She was dripping with blood from seemingly her entire body; there were sigils scarring nearly every inch of skin, many of them fresh.

Castiel’s breath caught, and he whipped around to the hunter most directly in his line of sight—Claire, as it were. “She’s not casting a spell,” he growled, voice echoing across the room. “She is the—” 

The witch shrieked out another quick string of strange words and Castiel’s voice strangled in his throat. He fell to one knee, both hands coming up to claw madly at his temples. 

“Cas!” Dean yelled at the same time Sam, across the room, shouted, “No!” their voices tangling and echoing in the dark, a chorus of grief and need. 

The other, larger angel watched Castiel writhing with detached interest, his stance relaxing. The danger of Castiel had passed. Behind them, the spell regained it’s hold on the werewolf, and it lurched for Sam. Dean reached for his second clip—the one with witch-killing bullets, and moved to switch them out, but the witch was faster. 

With a word, Dean’s hands were rendered useless, his body going slack. It was as if every bone in his body had turned to jelly. He dropped heavy as a rock, paralyzed, to the floor, head cracking hard against the concrete. In the corners of his eyes, the already dark warehouse grew darker, black spreading over them like a blanket. He was aware of a few things: the throbbing, claw marks still oozing on his cheek; the bloody shirt, clinging to him coldly; the sensation of something warm trickling through his hair, pooling beneath his head. Dean’s ears were ringing, but through the buzz, he heard Sam calling his name, something snarling, Claire’s yelling, and a gunshot.

The last thing Dean saw was Castiel rising, closing in on him like a rabid animal, and a pair of bright blue eyes looking into his as if he were a stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic turned out so much differently than I thought it would--and so much longer! Thanks for sticking with me. <3


	6. The Beginning

Dean drifted in and out of pseudo-consciousness for he didn’t know how long, spurred back into the waking world by heavy blows to his head and chest, retreating into the comfort of darkness whenever they briefly cease. He heard Sam’s voice in these broken moments, pleading, sounding far-off and reverberating as if his brother’s in a tunnel: “Cas, stop, listen…. Call it off, you’re killing…. everyone loses people, that doesn’t mean you can… NOW, CLAIRE!”

A trio of punctuating gunshots jolted Dean fully awake, only for a moment: he saw the blur of a falling body but couldn’t make out whose it is; from somewhere, heard the clatter of metal, the distinctive whoosh of wings. Then footsteps, Sam yelling, “Cas! Hey! That you in there?” But as the relative calm of a battle won settled over the warehouse, he let the tension leave his body, and drifted back into the black.

Somewhere beyond his consciousness, the world kept turning. 

“It’s me,” Castiel answered Sam, voice ragged. “What’s—Dean!” Cas pushed to his feet and staggered to Dean, leaking grace in places where the other angel had managed to slice.

“Yeah, he’s not good,” Sam worried, following to kneel beside his brother. “Can you—you can’t fix him, can you?” he realized, peering over the angel’s glowing wounds. 

“Call an ambulance,” is Castiel’s only reply. His stomach lurched; nobody needed to tell him he was the one who did this. He could tell by the way Sam and Claire lingered arm’s lengths away, the way they watched him like he was a bomb. 

Behind them, Claire was already on her phone, saying to the person on the other line, “Yes, this is an emergency.”

Cas reached to touch two fingers to Dean’s forehead, mumbling, “I can at least stop the bleeding.” He looked over to Sam, wondering, “And you and Claire?”

“Scrapes and bruises,” Sam said, swooping an arm behind his back in a bad attempt at hiding what’s obviously a broken wrist. 

“What’s our cover?” Claire interrupted, limping up to the pair and the unconscious man. “They’re on their way, and we look like hell.” In punctuation, she spits out a spray of blood. 

“Uhh—accidentally got mixed up in a gang fight,” Sam blurted, raking his good hand through his hair. He watched Castiel carefully; the angel hadn’t moved from his position crouching over the unconscious Dean. And his fingers still lingered on the hunter’s battered, swollen face. 

Instead, Castiel’s hand moved around to gently cradle Dean’s broken, bruising jawline, the thumb of his other hand ghosting just above the werewolf scratches on his cheek. He knew Sam and Claire were watching him, but he didn’t care. And he didn’t care that his first of many utterances of “I’m so sorry, Dean, so sorry, I love you” came just before the wailing of the approaching siren could drown it out; didn’t care that Claire and Sam heard the broken confession to the bloody man beneath him, beaten by his own hands. 

***  
Dean spent two days in the Verona hospital before he woke. The painkiller fog only lasted for a moment; his hunter’s instincts kicked in and his heart thumped wildly as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings, sending the pulse monitor into a panic. He tried to sit up, reaching to jerk the IV from his hand, but pain shuddered him backwards and he hissed a swear through his teeth. 

“Dean?”

Castiel’s voice brought Dean back down, and he turned his head gingerly. The angel was sunk into one of the uncomfortable, sea-green recliners reserved only for hospitals, but he shot up at Dean’s waking. “Are you alright? How do you feel? Don’t try to move too quickly.”

“Had worse,” Dean answered, surprised by his own voice: it was mostly a wheeze, the noise scratching in his throat. He cleared it, but it didn’t do much good. “You look awful.”

“It’s been a long weekend,” said Castiel wearily, settling himself back into the chair. 

“Weekend? How long was I out?”

“The fight was Friday afternoon,” said Castiel. “It’s Sunday evening. The sun went down about an hour ago.”

“Shit,” said Dean, sighing back into the bed. “What happened? Where’s Sam? Claire?”

“Sam’s fine,” said Castiel, consoling. “He’s just gone to check on Claire, back at the house. She broke her leg.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay?”

Castiel attempted a smile, but it fell flat. In that moment, he looked as tired as Dean had ever seen him, his head falling into his hands. 

“Talk to me, Cas,” Dean urged.

“I did this to you,” he said, matter-of-factly. When Dean shook his head, he continued, “No, Dean. I did. I know what you’ll say—it wasn’t me, it was a spell, and you’re right. It wasn’t me. But they were my hands.”

“Cas, it’s not—it’s not your fault, man. You can’t do that to yourself. You can’t.”

“You would,” the angel answered simply.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t a role model,” Dean scoffed, and then settled. “C’mon, man. I don’t want to fight with you. Not right now. Not anymore.”

Castiel was quiet, thoughtful. Instead of responding, he rose and touched two fingers to Dean’s forehead. “I’ve been too weak to be much help, but I’ve been doing a little a day. Speeding up your healing,” he said. “I’ll let Sam know to bring the car since you’ll be checking out.”

“I will?” Dean asked, but already his voice sounded stronger beneath Castiel’s touch, the pain in his skull still present, but the edge softened. He sat up stiffly, but without issue, and this time did pull the IV. “Huh. Guess I will. Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel nodded and moved across the room to lean against the windowsill. He tapped at his phone, and moments later, said, “Sam’s on his way. I’ll alert the nurse.”

Dean watched him disappear into the hallway, the soft rustle of the angel’s trench coat reminding him of missing wings. 

***  
“You know he didn’t leave your side once,” Sam said as he helped Dean get settled on the couch. “He almost fought a nurse when they wouldn’t let him into the ICU.”

Dean waved his brother off flippantly; nothing that prevented him from walking was broken, but he was definitely concussed, and the dizzy spells, as much as he hated it, meant he needed a balance. 

“I’m serious,” said Sam, stern as a parent. “I know he doesn’t really sleep, but I’m telling you man, he needed it this weekend. He wouldn’t leave you. Not even for a second.” Sam’s eyes shot toward the stairs; Castiel had gone up when they got home to give Claire’s leg a touch of grace.

“It’s Cas, he’s—y’know, weird,” Dean reasoned, sinking into the cushions. 

Sam shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. You didn’t see him. Dean, he—”

Sam cut himself off with a brusque sigh as the stairs squeaked with Castiel’s descent. The angel lingered at the bottom of the steps with his hands in his pockets, peering over at Sam and Dean on the couch. The younger hunter rose and looked seriously between them both. “You guys need to talk. So, talk,” he said, and loped past Cas, taking the stairs two at a time.

“I guess I did promise, didn’t I?” croaked Dean, smiling humorlessly and looking down to his hands. 

“Dean, it’s alright,” said Cas. “We don’t have to—”

“Yeah, we do,” said Dean, simply. 

Slowly, Castiel unstuck his feet from the floor and made his way to the couch, seating himself at the end opposite Dean, but angled in to face him. He watched as the hunter wrestled, again, with that many-tentacled beast locked inside his body, a hand coming up to swipe his face. 

“Listen, Cas, I just—” Dean started, and stopped, words broken up by sighs and frustrated grunts. “I’ve never—I’m not—but it’s _you_.” He looked up to Castiel, who wat watching with that blue intensity, and when it became apparent the angel wasn’t going to speak, he continued. 

“A few years ago we were working a case in this church,” he started. “Or cathedral, I guess. Catholics. But anyway, and I—I thought I was done for, y’know? I had the Mark, we were getting nowhere with it, and I—so I went to confessional.” Dean paused, gauging Castiel’s response, but the angel’s face was open, eyes soft. He swallowed, broke his gaze, and went on. “And I told the priest—well, I said a lot of things. But one of them was that I wanted to uhm…to experience people, feelings differently. Or maybe for the first time. And it was—I was talking about you, Cas. It was about you.”

A long silence settled over the living room, and Castiel resisted the urge to reach out and touch the hunter, place a hand on his knee, caress the almost-faded scars on his cheek. But he didn’t; instead, he breathed out a quiet, “Dean, I—“ but was cut off.

“Listen, I’m not good at this,” Dean interrupted. “I never have been. And if we—if we do this thing for real, say it out loud and make it true, I don’t know how that works,” he confessed. “I don’t know what that looks like, Cas. This is uncharted territory. What I _do_ know is you do something to me, and I don’t know what to do with it—because there’s so _much_ of it, and it’s so messy, and complicated, and—”

“Dean, I love you,” Castiel said, cutting off the hunter in his tracks. 

“Cas—”

“I love you,” the angel repeated, edging himself across the couch. Without permission, he gathered both of Dean’s hands in his own, and he could feel the speeding pulse beneath their skin. “And I don’t know what that looks like either. But I’m willing to try to find out. If you are.”

Dean swallowed hard, but he nodded, staring at the hands holding his. “Yeah. I think I can do that.”

A brightness spread across Castiel’s face, and Dean couldn’t help but grin in return. “Good,” the angel answered, and leaned forward to pull the hunter into a careful embrace, grazing his lips across the healing scars on Dean’s cheek as he did. From his proximity, he could feel the heat radiating into Dean’s ears. 

For a few long moments, Dean buried his head into Castiel’s shoulder, splayed his hands across the angel’s back. When they finally pulled apart, a nervous kind of joy settled in his gut. He couldn’t take his eyes off Castiel’s lips, his bright blue eyes. 

“Where would you like to start?” Castiel offered, his head tilting familiarly. 

Dean considered for a moment, worrying his bottom lip. He reached over to his phone on the coffee table, checking the time. Nearly ten PM; earlier than he’d usually go to sleep, but hell, it had been a rough week. 

“How about here?” he wondered cautiously, angling himself into the crook of Castiel’s arm. 

Castiel did him one better. He slid back down the couch and gently pulled Dean along with him, allowing the hunter to lie down and stretch out, and he carefully guided Dean’s head to rest on his leg. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Dean mumbled, settling more comfortably into the position than he’d ever dreamed he would. His eyes fluttered closed and he drifted off to Castiel’s hand resting across his heart, the other carding gently through his hair. And, sometime in the night, he swore he felt warm, chapped lips grace over his forehead, his nose, his mouth, and when he woke the next day he prayed he hadn’t dreamt it. 

***  
Claire left early the next morning after getting one last shot of grace-healing from Castiel. She said Jody’d be worried if she was gone longer, even though she’d known where Claire was. 

So they gave their awkward hugs, said their goodbyes, and watched Claire rattle off down the road in her old car. 

The men were ready to leave not long after, and Sam made a point to leave Dean and Cas alone a little longer than necessary for some grace-healing of their own while he packed up the car. 

Dean and Castiel both knew what Sam was doing, but they didn’t care. While he was outside they leaned into each other, swapping breathy, tentative kisses against the wall beside the door, hands in each other’s hair, exploring cheekbones and jawlines with fingers and brushes of lips as if at any moment, one of them might disappear. 

Everyone agreed it was better if Sam drove. Dean was mostly okay, thanks to the doses of grace, but he was still a little dizzy. 

Sam decided not to mention it when Dean slid into the backseat with Castiel. And when he caught them over and over in the rearview mirror—touching hands across the seat, then looping fingers, then slowly sliding closer to each other until, finally, Dean was under Castiel’s arm, head on his shoulder, the two of them eventually a tangled mess of trench coat and flannel in one corner of the car—he pretended not to notice.

**Author's Note:**

> Idea based on this tumblr post:
> 
> https://scontent-dft4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22688443_10156708584378356_7392662994563913513_n.jpg?oh=e9f1bbde72a0fd137a0b0addc7859e7b&oe=5A73BB81


End file.
